William Feasley
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Contact: ; 301-565-0458.
Classical guitarist William Feasley was the first guitarist to be awarded the Peabody Conservatory's coveted Artist Diploma. He has since been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards: a gold medal in the 1987 PanHellenic Guitar Competition in Athens, the 1990 and 1995 Baltimore Chamber Music Awards and a 1996 Governor's Citation for Outstanding Achievements in the Arts in Maryland.
Selected to play for Andrés Segovia at the master's historic last class at the University of Southern California in 1986, he was later featured on the CBS special, Eulogy of Segovia.
Since making his debut in 1980 with the San Francisco Ballet, performing Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez for Lou Christenson's ballet, Don Juan, William Feasley has maintained an active international touring schedule.
He has appeared in the Ohrid Spoleto Festival in Macedonia and venues such as St. Martin in the Fields in London, the National Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection, the Washington National Cathedral and the Yale University Centre for British Art. He has toured with the Russian Chamber Orchestra, Music Viva , in the former Yugoslavia, with the Moyzes String Quartet in Slovakia, performed live on ABC International Radio in Australia, with New York's Bacchanalia Ensemble under the direction of Nina Beilina and Washington's 20th Century Consort.
William has been a featured soloist at the Mertz International Guitar Festival in Bratislava, the Quito International Guitar Festival, the Cochabamba Guitar Festival in Bolivia, the Winter Festival in Sarajevo, the Forfest Contemporary Music Festival and the Stramberk Guitar Festival in the Czech Republic, the Gliwice International Guitar festival in Poland and the XI Lima International Guitar Festival . Recent tours have included Spain, the Caribbean, Greece, Serbia, Italy, Ecuador, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, The Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bosnia, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Iceland.
He released four critically acclaimed discs for the Sonora label: Simplicity, American Sketches -- musical Americana with rags, Gershwin and Coplandesque landscapes, Echoes of Goya -- a multimedia presentation on the life of the famous painter and his impact on several generations of composers and Shenandoah, featuring music of Robert Beaser, Ralph Towner, George Rochberg and Joaquin Rodrigo. His most recent solo recording, Pan American Odyssey, features music written for him by Argentine, Cuban and North American composers.
He has recently released a new album, Behind the Moon, with oboist Emily Tsai, his partner in the D’Amore Duo.